


One colour ends and one begins

by queennmab



Category: bare: A Pop Opera - Hartmere/Intrabartolo
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 17:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8254283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queennmab/pseuds/queennmab
Summary: She paints herself all over the school, in the back of classrooms where she flirts with boys, in the dark of her room where she flirts with girls, in the ground where she holds court and feels wanted





	

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by Ziska over @autumnhelenekuragina on tumblr who said 'Ivy paints Nadia on every surface and tells her she's beautiful until Nadia starts to believe it'

Ivy spent her entire life trying to capture beauty, at first it was her mother’s. As a girl she tried to hold onto her mother forever, grasping her soft, slightly calloused hand in her own, examining every line, every bump and cut, every nail painted with cheap red polish. She memorised those hands, along with her mother’s loose curls and bright smile, translating them to picture, trying to keep her mother’s beauty alive in her drawings. So, that even when her mothers smile started to crack and the bags under her eyes got deeper, and her loose curls became untidier, Ivy would always have her beauty, untarnished and unbroken to look back on.

The second was her own. The one that gets reflected back at her, that causes people to spread rumours and lies about. She captured it in the hands of others and later in their beds, never questioning as they slowly took that beauty away from her. She tries capturing it in the hymns of Church, and she tries to absolve it at the hands of Father, never fully believing the prayers of absolution and forgiveness that she whispers in the cold church. Her sketchbook fills with arms and legs and hands and eyes, with models and actors, all pieces of herself, and pieces of who she wants to be. She paints herself all over the school, in the back of classrooms where she flirts with boys, in the dark of her room where she flirts with girls, in the ground where she holds court and feels wanted. Her beauty gets remodelled and distorted by everyone who comes in contact with it, they make it their own with their hands and their lips and their words, until she no longer recognises it, until it no longer belongs to her. 

She gives up trying to capture her beauty.

She focuses on others instead. 

On the beauty of Peter’s voice, which she tries to paint onto canvas, resulting in splatters of blue and purple on her hands and in her dreams. She remembers the weight of Matt’s hand in hers for weeks on end in 8th grade, her mind concocting images that keep her awake at night and she’s too ashamed to remember in the morning. She attempts to capture the sound of Jason’s laughter and the smile that erupts on his face whenever he looks at Peter. She never manages to do its beauty justice. 

It comes as no surprise that the first time Ivy tells Nadia to _sit still_ is only a few months after they meet. Ivy attempting to capture the way the light in their room shines off Nadia’s skin, bringing attention to her dark brown eyes and slight freckles, and Nadia never quite believing her beauty was worth documenting. Ivy spends years trying to highlight the sound of Nadia’s laughter, to showcase the warmth she feels when Nadia’s smile reaches up to her eyes and the soft dimples form in her cheeks. She fills her desk draws with sketches and with paintings, with softly spoken odes to Nadia’s dark hair, intoxicating voice, and her intriguing eyes that hide a million secrets and shelter a thousand insecurities. Portraits that Ivy vows will never see the light of day, not yet willing to expose her heart, knowing all to well the damage an exposed heart can do. They remain whispers in the night, and soft subtle glances during the day, and holding of hands in the halls with echoes of _best friends_ trailing them. 

They become envy and detachment, and screaming matches at two in the morning. They lay there cold and forgotten, a stark reminder of what used to be before Ivy was afraid to voice what her heart wanted. They’re snark comments and sharp insults, meant to cut and bruise and pierce the skin. And they do. Ivy captures the beauty of a broken girl, never quite sure if it’s her’s or Nadia’s, or both, she decides she doesn’t care, for their brokenness is each other’s too. 

And then they help mend. 

Portraits fill their apartment, hanging from walls, stuck under books, hiding in closets. Drawings of friends, family, of loved ones that have been and gone. But none fill their home as much as ones of Nadia do. Every surface is a shrine to the girl in which Ivy carved out a home, and broke and then mended. 

They started out as sketches – the day after she realised her pregnancy had stemmed from her biggest regret – filling every page of an old notebook. Ivy tries to capture the kindness and the compassion, and the eventual forgiveness that flowed from the girl she had loved and had later left behind. Hoping it would grow into a balanced friendship, because if they could share even half the affection they once had she’d be content. 

Slowly hurried sketches became drawings she laboured over for hours, making sure to get all the lines of Nadia McConnell exactly right. Paintings of pinks and yellow and violets capture the pleasure of Nadia’s lips on hers, of being hers, of giving herself to her, of mending each others beauty. Early morning coffee cups and late night wine stains find themselves onto scraps of paper. Long monotonous days made better with soft kisses and steady declarations of love get translated into wall paintings. Life gets sculptured around them, drawn from the memory of sadness and the sharp reminder of what could have been, and promises that they will be better and do better, and love better. And so Ivy captures the broken and discarded as it becomes whole and treasured, and her love entwines with Nadia’s, both mending each other and filling their lives with a cracked but sturdy beauty.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on @queennmab on tumblr, and comments and kudos are always appreciated xx


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